Archive for November 26, 2010
People “Shopping”
The Big News on my local teevee is about people “shopping.” People shopping on “Black Friday,” people shopping tomorrow on “Small Business Saturday” and people shopping on “Cyber Monday.”
“Shopping” sounds so idyllic and leisurely but the pictures and videos show frantic people knocking each other down and literally getting trampled.
Congratulations America. You’re doing exactly what the corporatocracy wants you to do.
Ah, Merry Christmas?
Your Future is No Longer Available
This video is titled, “(We’re sorry) Your future is no longer available:” It is “On the subject of URL blocking and various other information safety campaigns loosely referred to as the Great Firewall of China.”
It is part of the Guggenheim Museum’s YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video.
It struck me because (1) I would hate to live behind this kind of a wall and I now have a new appreciation and empathy for people who do. And (2) if the Comcast/NBC merger goes through, we just might end up with something like this, based less on content than on the ability to pay for access.
Fox Promotes a Story From The Onion, Doesn’t Mention It’s Satire
One of the headlines under “New Stories” over at TheFoxNation.com is this one:
If you click on that teaser graphic you go here:
And if you click on the “Read the Full Story at TheOnion.com” link at the bottom, you go to the full story at The Onion, here.
So, Fox News and its companion website, TheFoxNation, put themselves out as legitimate news organizations but in posting these graphics and these headlines they make no mention whatsoever that TheOnion.com is a satirical site, so their readers think what they’re reading is true. Which is exactly what Fox wants them to think.
There oughta be a law.
(H/t NewsHounds.)
Black Friday
Ah yes, today is “Black Friday,” a meme I’m so sick of I could scream. But today is black Friday in another way. Today marks the nine-year, 50-day anniversary of the U.S. invasion and presence in Afghanistan — equal to the length of time the former Soviet Union spent going broke there:
The Soviet Union couldn’t win in Afghanistan, and now the United States is about to have something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state. …
What started out as a quick war on Oct. 7, 2001, by the U.S. and its allies to wipe out al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has instead turned into a long and slogging campaign. Now about 100,000 NATO troops are fighting a burgeoning insurgency while trying to support and cultivate a nascent democracy.
There wasn’t much deliberation before we invaded Afghanistan back in 2001 but there was a tiny bit of concern about not getting bogged down like the Soviets did. But we were told not to worry. Bush & Co. said assured us it would be a quick, cheap war. After all, we were “just” going in to get Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Fast forward to today, nine years, 50 days later, and Osama bin Laden is still out there, al Qaeda is still active and we’re nation-building, something we were told we didn’t do. And now President Obama, who was inexplicably awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, says we’ll be there at least until 2014.
The Soviet economy went bust losing its war in Afghanistan. Ours is too.
Welcome to black Friday.
